Between Art and End
by Lord22
Summary: Each of us perceives our own version of reality. What we see, hear and touch is filtered through our own mind. After Sasuke's confrontation with Deidara the world all began to fall into place. But perception and truth are two different things. And no one can lie to themselves forever...


**Chapter One: True Art is a Success**

It was over.

Deidara had thrown his last gasp in those tendrils he'd thrown at him. Now Sasuke had him cornered. It had been a lot harder than he'd expected, the Akatsuki had fought well. He'd forced Sasuke to use most of his abilities. He'd nearly lost as well.

But now Deidara was speaking at him as if the fight wasn't over. "You're still calm?" asked Deidara, voice incredulous. "Shouldn't you be worried at least a little? Come on; you're about to be killed by my art."

Sasuke said nothing. He figured he'd let the maniac get it out of his system before getting to the interrogation. Just stay calm and keep quiet until he reacts.

"That is what annoys me the most!" snarled Deidara. "About you and your brother! You think you're so cool! Those eyes! Those overconfident eyes make me so sick! Your eyes, always judging me and my art!

"You have absolutely no respect for my art! I can tell that you don't!

"I can never forgive those eyes that ignore my art!"

What the hell was he babbling about? What, those clay objects? What was the point of making them if he was going to blow them up? Get to the point. "I couldn't care less about all of that. I just want you to tell me where I can find Itachi."

Sasuke deactivated his Sharingan. Deidara was done, and anyway, he'd burned enough chakra.

Deidara went silent. "So you've retracted your Sharingan! Do you really take me that lightly!"

And then he ripped off his shirt. What was he doing? Wait, why was he removing a string from his torso-

Was that a mouth?

Sasuke was beginning to think Deidara might not be done. He tried to spring back, but his body wouldn't move.

"This is my ultimate art! This time I'm going to detonate myself!" screamed Deidara, shoving a huge lump of clay into his chest.

"He's insane!" thought Sasuke as he tried to will himself to move.

"In death, I shall become art itself!" roared Deidara manically. "No one's seen an explosion like this! One that shall leave behind a scar on the very earth itself! And then I will receive more admiration for my art than ever before!" He looked down, as if regretful. "Sorry, Tobi..." Then he looked back to Sasuke with a smile. "But while I will be admired, you'll most definitely be dead!

"This explosion will cover ten kilometers! You can't run away from this one! Tremble, be afraid! Recoil in despair because my art..."

Sasuke was dead unless he did something and fast.

Suddenly Sasuke saw how he could escape this. He'd use that snake summoning contract he had to summon a giant serpent! Then he'd leap inside it and escape via unsummoning it!

Yes, yes, it was happening even now!

He worked at it, faster than he had ever worked in furious desperation. The serpent was summoned, just as he'd planned. And it opened its mouth for him, so he leaped in just behind. He felt the light behind him and unsummoned him.

And his plan worked perfectly. Sasuke got free, the serpent died yes, but Suigetsu was waiting for him. And he went on, along with the others. Kisame, that sharkman from before, invited him to a direct duel with his brother. He'd always assumed that he was less than dirt to Itachi. But clearly, obviously, he had awaited this battles as much as Sasuke had.

He met Itachi and did battle with him. It was the hardest fight he'd ever done, but in the end, he dealt a mortal blow. Yet Itachi had some sort of armor thing that he'd never read about at all. Itachi staggered toward Sasuke, but he didn't take his eyes in the end.

He died, and Sasuke collapsed.

But he woke up later and met the one called Tobi. Yet he was completely different now, dark voiced like death itself. He revealed that Sasuke's brother, Itachi, had always loved him. Everything he'd done had been for Sasuke. He'd been forced to murder the Uchihas.

Sasuke would never have believed it. He'd deluded himself about things like this when he was younger, but there it was plain and clear. Even now, he was remembering little things like Itachi crying.

He'd always assumed Itachi had just snapped after one too many mission.

But how could Tobi know all this, yes, yes he must be Madara Uchiha like he claimed. And he commanded the Akatsuki! Of course, he did, the Akatsuki were the most dangerous group of rogue ninja in history! Even Orochimaru feared them!

It made sense that they would be led by an Uchiha. Even if Madara ought to have been dead for a full century, it was only rational. Pain, the leader Orochimaru had mentioned, was only the face of the organization.

But if the Leaf blackmailed Itachi into this, Sasuke had to get revenge on this. Yes, yes, he did, but didn't that mean he'd have to fight Naruto? Hadn't he thought about returning there when all this was over?

No, no, Tobi was going to fight Naruto. Sasuke was being sent to fight Killer Bee, the Eight-Tails Jinchuuriki. Who... spoke in raps. And was apparently best friends with his tailed beast. Yet Killer Bee was powerful. Sasuke and his comrades barely defeated him, but Sasuke was able to use a power, Amaterasu to burn him. But that would kill him, and he needed the Jinchuuriki, so he found a never before mentioned power to turn it off.

Except Naruto kept looking for him.

Could Sasuke kill Naruto and Sakura and the others? Their attempt to free him, it had failed but their voices...

It had woken him up. If they hadn't come all that way, he'd have been possessed by Orochimaru. If he tried to take revenge on the Leaf he'd have to kill them, and Shino and all the rest.

Then there was a huge explosion, gigantic, and it consumed all of the Leaf Village, and everyone died. Except for Sasuke's friends, of course, but everyone else was dead. But...

All of them.

He hadn't wanted this.

Wait, no, no Pain brought everyone back to life! Naruto had stopped him and turned him good. Naruto never gave up on anyone. Except that meant the Leaf wasn't destroyed, and Sasuke had to take revenge on it.

Oh wait, Danzo became Hokage because Orochimaru gave him ten Sharingans. Which he used to hypnotize the Feudal Lord into replacing Tsunade.

Wait a minute Orochimaru's entire end goal was to attain the Sharingan. Why would he give Danzo ten? Could he just keep one for himself and give him the other nine?

Moving on.

The point was... the point was Danzo was a tyrant, and everyone hated him. And there was going to be a civil war in the Leaf unless someone did something. But there was an international Kage Summit. This was his chance, so he attacked, and he beat up all the Kage by himself.

He fought Danzo, but Danzo kept coming back to life. Karin kept getting in the way too, but Sasuke finished Danzo by shooting through Karin.

She was basically just a more creepy replacement for Sakura anyway. Although she had been a bit helpful, he guessed. Oh, she healed herself but went insane.

Whatever, she wasn't important anyway.

Now he could go back to the Leaf. Maybe Sasuke could fix things up with Sakura, although she and Naruto might be dating now.

No, no, that couldn't be.

Oh, wait, he'd just killed the Hokage and started an international incident. This was... problematic.

Oh look, Tobi raised an invincible army of undead warriors. He summoned back all the Akatsuki, including Itachi. And there was a huge war where everyone fought everyone else. Yet nobody on the side of the good guys actually died. Guy-sensei used the gate of death, but got healed.

Someone should die here. This was supposed to be the Fourth Shinobi World War everything had been building up to. Sasuke just hoped it would be someone he didn't know. But chances were at least someone Sasuke knew would die. Oh, look, Neji died, and Hinata and Naruto hooked up.

Fine, Neji was a jerk anyway. He'd nearly beaten Hinata to death.

Oh, and Karin was alive and angry at him for blasting her through the chest, but he apologized, and it was alright. And, somewhere along the line, he'd had a fight with Naruto, several fights actually. But Sasuke tried to kill Sakura during them. Why would he do that?

He'd tried to kill Sakura in his first fight with Naruto after he found them, didn't he?

Oh, and Kabuto engineered himself into a Sage God thing, and Madara wasn't Madara but Obito. That one random kid Kakashi mentioned once, and he was angry because Kakashi let Rin die. That seemed like kind of a weak as far as motives go for destroying the world.

What was his motive anyway?

Oh, yes. He plans to plunge the world into despair by using a special eye power to hypnotize the word. Wait a minute, hadn't Deidara tried himself to be immune to the Sharingan? And hadn't Sasuke found again and again that some people could resist hypnosis?

Well, it didn't matter. The only possible hope for the survival of the world was for Naruto and Sasuke to work together. But wasn't Sasuke fighting Kabuto and losing? After all, Kabuto had access to all the powers of every single person who ever served Orochimaru. The Sharingan was a pretty cool power, but the odds seemed stacked against him.

Oh good, Itachi had some never before mentioned extraordinary power that forced Kabuto to turn good. Whether he liked it or nor, so now, Kabuto would help them stop Madara.

But they were too late. Madara was immortal and brokenly overpowered. And he'd put the world under hypnosis. Wait a minute, how the hell were Sasuke and Naruto supposed to take this guy?

He was so overpowered that the last three overpowered bad guys trembled in fear of him.

Oh, wait, Black Zetsu killed him. And he was working all along for some never before seen or mentioned goddess thing. The one who created chakra. Except she was an alien and... and...

Sasuke was running out of ideas here.

Wait a minute; how he be running out of ideas? This was reality. What was it Itachi said before their final fight? Every one of us perceives a different reality.

Why should those words resonate so much with him during this moment?

Come to think of it, ever since he escaped Deidara, the entire universe seemed to revolve around him. Every major event in history had been revealed to revolve around the Uchiha Clan. Sasuke's rivalry with Naruto turned out to be a fated, destined rivalry. One that all of history had been shaped by.

And there seemed to be an unfortunate reoccurring trend of Sasuke getting owned, then saved by a deus ex machina. As if God was intervening to ensure he stayed alive.

One was, sort of, the god of one's imagination.

But why would Sasuke be so fixated on imagining himself being on the verge of certain death? It was because of that near-death experience against Deidara, wasn't it?

...This moment was stretching into eternity, wasn't it?

Sasuke was ten feet away from the center of a ten-kilometer explosion. Also, Orochimaru never taught him the snake contract; he taught it to Anko. Sasuke was kneeling here, unable to stand, let alone summon a giant serpent.

Began to speed up.

As it did, Sasuke saw Kaguya defeated and peace restored. He apologized half-heartedly to Sakura. For trying to kill her multiple times, and she accepted. Why would she accept it? What had Sasuke ever done for her? And would Naruto never give up on someone who'd actively tried to destroy the entire world? Purely out of spite.

Sasuke doubted it. The spell broke, and he saw clearly.

Restore his clan. What utter nonsense. Sasuke had never cared about anything but himself. Itachi had been an excuse, not the reason.

Sasuke hadn't joined Orochimaru because he wanted justice or power. He could have taken some lessons from Tsunade or Jiraiya or any number of other talented ninjas.

He'd been jealous of Naruto in the end. Sasuke had warmed up to him, come to regard him as useful. But Naruto was supposed to be the sidekick. Everyone except Naruto had known it.

Except Naruto hadn't been content with that. He'd kept getting better.

Little by little, Sasuke had realized he was becoming a sidekick in the story he was supposed to be the hero of. That was why he'd challenged Naruto to a fight, and when he lost...

The Sound Four offered him a chance to escape.

And Sasuke had left them to die. Every single one of those ninjas had died, making sure he could get to Orochimaru. They'd been taking his orders. Instead of leading them, he'd sent them to hold off the people who had been sent to rescue him. And doing so had nearly killed his friends.

He could have made a plan to sneak out. Set a trap to make sure the people who had been trying to save him were knocked out and made it clean away. But they had just been tools. The Sound Four who gave their lives for him had been tools.

And he'd had the nerve to manipulate Jugo, use his loyalty to Kimmimaro to get him to join Sasuke. And Orochimaru...

Sasuke had betrayed him.

Orochimaru had been straight with Sasuke. He'd agreed to train him to kill Itachi, and then he'd take his body. He'd made no secret of his intentions, and Sasuke agreed. He'd acted like an utterly self-centered brat. He'd demanded total attention, and Orochimaru had given it to him.

And for what?

So Sasuke could murder him in his sickbed. Sasuke hadn't even had the guts to fight him when he was healthy. Orochimaru was a monster; he did that kind of thing all the time. But how did it make Sasuke any better if he did the same thing? Sasuke had betrayed the Leaf for its greatest enemy, taken his training, and then murdered him in turn.

And in the end, it was going to be an absolute waste. This random Akatsuki Sasuke had never even met before was going to kill him in some revenge by proxy on Itachi. He'd die before he ever had a chance even to cross blades with Itachi.

But it was appropriate.

Sasuke had always tried to be an avenger of righteous judgment. The hero who killed Itachi and restored his clan. He'd feared more than anything becoming a subplot in Naruto's own grand story. In the end, he was neither.

He was a villain. Villains didn't get their storylines resolved.

Time returned to normal, and Sasuke had mere moments to say any last words.

"Those who abandon their teammates are worse than scum," said Sasuke, feeling more dead than ever before.

Deidara took no notice. **"IS AN EXPLOSION!"**

Everything went white.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

So this is an idea that occurred to me as I watched the plot of Naruto become more convoluted. See, I notice that the plot starts to revolve around the extinct Uchiha Clan after Deidara goes nuts. Itachi, the axe crazy sociopath, turns out to be a nice guy who loved Sasuke all along. The main villain turns out to be taking orders from a secret Uchiha mastermind. And all of history just happens to revolve around the things most important to Sasuke.

Coincidentally, this all happens just at the moment Sasuke's life ought to start flashing before his eyes.


End file.
